Sunday, September 24, 2017
Numos
This cold hard article about Wilson's evil brings up some facts I hadn't heard before, but misses some of the major evils.
Prohibition didn't just create gangs, it directly killed lots of people:
is one date.
We should call this error a numo instead of a typo. Two numbers are identical, so it doesn't matter which symbols you use.
= = = = =
Fussy metrology sidenote: I was thinking of examples ... V or 5, six or half a dozen, a penny or $.01, pi or 180 degrees.... Wait. The last one is NOT identical, and the SIentists who insist on using radians for all measurements are LESS PRECISE than the old-fashioned carpenters and surveyors who use degrees. The most commonly used angles are the clock or compass points. 15, 30, 45,... 360. Even in electronics the formulas are based on 2pi or 360. For most uses of angles, the degree version is an integer, so the rest of the calculation doesn't lose precision from the angle. When you use radians, ALL angles are imprecise. Even the common points are non-repeating decimals, never reaching precision in any earthly machine.
To broaden support for the war, Wilson partnered with the Prohibition movement. Even before the 18th Amendment was ratified, Wilson banned beer sales as a wartime measure. Prohibition itself was a public-health disaster; the rate of alcoholism tripled during the 1920s. To punish lawbreakers, the federal government added poisons to industrial alcohol that was often converted into drinkable hooch; 10,000 people were killed as a result.Damn. The author covers the Wilsonian creation of the Dust Bowl, which I've covered in detail. He misses the Russian Intervention, in which we COLLABORATED WITH THE AXIS BEFORE ARMISTICE to force "democracy" on Russia. The parallels to modern times are overwhelming. The author was overwhelmed at one point, making a beautiful typo that the editors didn't catch:
Before the war began, Wilson declared in April 2015, “No nation is fit to sit in judgement upon any other nation.” In his war speech to Congress in 1917, he portrayed the Kaiser as a dictator (though Germany was actually far more democratic than most parts of the British Empire). By 1919, Wilson had totally reversed his moral compass, declaring, “In the last analysis, my fellow countrymen, as we in America would be the first to claim, a people are responsible for the acts of their government.” Unfortunately, that became the lodestar for subsequent U.S. warring — including the massive civilian bombings of Germany and Japan in World War II, in North Korea in 1952, in Vietnam, and in Iraq in this century.
is one date.
We should call this error a numo instead of a typo. Two numbers are identical, so it doesn't matter which symbols you use.
= = = = =
Fussy metrology sidenote: I was thinking of examples ... V or 5, six or half a dozen, a penny or $.01, pi or 180 degrees.... Wait. The last one is NOT identical, and the SIentists who insist on using radians for all measurements are LESS PRECISE than the old-fashioned carpenters and surveyors who use degrees. The most commonly used angles are the clock or compass points. 15, 30, 45,... 360. Even in electronics the formulas are based on 2pi or 360. For most uses of angles, the degree version is an integer, so the rest of the calculation doesn't lose precision from the angle. When you use radians, ALL angles are imprecise. Even the common points are non-repeating decimals, never reaching precision in any earthly machine.Labels: Language update, Metrology
¶ 8:33 AM
